Ahmad Khan Rahami lived with his father. His father never noticed the pressure cookers, the bomb parts — none of it? He should be closely questioned.
“‘I called the FBI 2 years ago!’: Chelsea bombing suspect’s dad,” by Kevin Sheehan and Yaron Steinbuch, New York Post, September 20, 2016:
…After closing his New Jersey fried chicken restaurant, Mohammad Rahami was asked by reporters whether he had called the feds on his son.
“Yes, I called the FBI,” he said as he drove off in his Chevy Suburban after speaking with FBI agents in Elizabeth, where he lives above his First American Fried Chicken joint.
He also said he didn’t think his son is a terrorist. Asked why, he said: “Because the FBI — they know that.”
The cryptic response followed one he made earlier, when he yelled, “I called the FBI two years ago!”…
A day earlier, the elder Rahami said he had “no idea” about his son’s alleged bomb plots in New York and New Jersey.
“My heart is very, very…,” he said before trailing off.
Asked if he been aware of what his son was up to, he told NBC News: “No idea.”…
A neighbor and former Marine who served in Afghanistan told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that “the father used to be a mujahedeen in Afghanistan.”
“He is from the same city where I was deployed as a Marine,” Jonathan Wagner told Haaretz, adding that the father used to say the Taliban were ruining Afghanistan.
An agent has confirmed that Mohammad Rahami really did call the feds, but then retracted his claims about his son: “Ahmad Rahami’s dad accused son of being a terrorist in 2014,” by Kevin Johnson, USA Today, September 20, 2016:
New York bombing suspect Ahmad Rahami surfaced on the FBI’s radar about two years ago when Rahami’s father allegedly referred to his son as a terrorist, a federal law enforcement official told USA TODAY on Tuesday.
The reference came during a domestic dispute involving the family, prompting the FBI to review the father’s claims, according to the official who was not authorized to comment publicly.
The official said the matter was closed in part because the father recanted his claim, and there was nothing to substantiate it.